Although originally made entirely by hand in Italy, the manufacturing processes of today's technology allow a pizza to be made in large scale production assemblies, frozen or freeze-dried before packaging, and shipped to grocers nationwide. The pizza may be a completed prebaked pizza pie, having the customary prebaked pizza crust topped with a sauce, shredded cheese, and assorted vegetables or meats of choice, or the pizza may be supplied in the form of a pizza kit, having an unbaked crust provided along with containers of sauce and cheese for the consumer to build the pizza and then bake the same. In both instances, the pizza crust is generally flat, and the toppings on the pizza must be applied with moderation in order to prevent the same from overflowing the crust during the baking process.
To overcome this problem, the traditional pizza has also taken on new forms and new shapes made possible by an ever evolving technology. Circular pizza crusts may be provided with a flange or lip extending around the periphery thereof, thus creating an upstanding edge to prevent the overflow of any toppings. Not only does this apply to classic circular pizzas available in restaurants and grocer's freezers, but square and rectangular shaped pizzas have likewise become available with a flanged crust. Similarly, the folded over pizza, or calzone, has emerged as a more suitably-sized meal for one person having generally similar ingredients to the pizza. Although the folding over of the calzone crust theoretically prevents the overflow of the toppings therein, in practice the joining seams of the folded crust may not be sufficiently sealed to prevent the same. The simple hand-tossed pizza crust of the original pizzas has also developed, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,405,627, into a two layer flanged crust capable of mass production through a plurality of crust templates and known press technology.
While each of the above pizza advances may further the production capabilities and/or conveniences for the consumer, the prior art has not developed a pizza capable of having increasing toppings, and thus, increasing the edible appeal for the consumer.